by Colin Wright

Menum

My 6 Life Focuses

The basics of what keep me motivated and moving forward are deceptively simple and easy to relate in just six main points of focus.

1. Increase self-reliance

It’s important to me that I’m able to operate without crutches as much as possible, and things like dependencies and addictions get in the way of having a fully-developed, internalized ‘living mechanism’ that can get you through anything and help you achieve whatever you want to achieve.

To that end, I aim to make sure that I’m always on the path to greater self-reliance, and as a result, self-confidence, so that other people and things in my life can be happy additions — rather than desperately sought-after saviors — to my lifestyle.

2. Increase personal freedom

Freedom can mean a lot of different things to different people, but to me it represents options.

Being financially independent and physically capable person gives me the option of traveling full time, and right now I’m exercising that option. I also have the freedom to stop traveling, should I want to, and to open up a restaurant or become a clown or spend my life in a library, paging through ancient manuscripts for no other reason than ‘I want to.’

In my mind, personal freedom is the gateway to evolution: it gives you the time and excuse to do whatever, whenever. That’s a powerful thing. As such, I do all I can to remove anything from my life that hinders my personal freedom.

3. Continue personal evolution

Some people (myself included) have wondered aloud if I am addicted to change. I would say that ‘addicted’ is probably too strong a word, but I do enjoy it, and what I love most about change is that it allows you to grow as a person, and sometimes by leaps and bounds.

My personal development is important to me because I remember I time in my life when I plateau’d, and it was the only time I’ve ever been utterly discontented and somewhat depressed. The static-nature of my existence was a weight on my mind and well-being.

These days, on the other hand, I have the ability to immediately put into practice what I learn and to try out new versions of myself whenever I like, which makes me happier than just about anything else I’ve encountered thus far. This in mind, I make it a key part of my everyday mission to continue to grow and change and evolve as much as possible, and as quickly as possible.

4. Learn more about more

The pursuit of knowledge is important to me, and being a ridiculously curious person I’m incredibly fulfilled when I’m learning new things; expanding my mental-map of how the universe works and where each and every detail is pinned on that big picture.

To this end, I spend a great deal of my time reading all kinds of things about all kinds of fields, talking to folks who know things I don’t know, and trying my hand at different professions and skill sets in an effort to better understand how it all fits together. Perspective is also key, as being able to see the world from new angles gives me the ability to solve problems before they become problems.

Learning more about more also makes me happy, and increases my ability to evolve, which in turn increases my level of personal freedom.

5. Maximize value created

In everything I do, I see opportunities to increase efficiencies and effectiveness. It’s a fun game I play with myself to see how far I can push to get greater gains in this area, but it’s also a goal that allows me to create more value with less effort; a habit that bears all kinds of fruit.

I see value creation as a ratio: I spend x amount of time to create y units of value. My goal is to increase x:y, so that less effort is required to create more value (for example, I could spend 1 hour creating 1 blog post — 1:1 — or I could spend 10 hours writing 1 ebook which contains 100 times more value than a blog post; 1:10).

This gives me more personal freedom, of course, but it also gives me the ability to create excess value which I’m then able to give away, increasing the quality of other peoples’ lives and my community (the world) for the better in some small way. In my mind, both of these outcomes are equally important, as benefiting myself is good for the short term, while benefiting other people is a solid investment (for me and for everyone else) in the long term.

6. Have fun, always

In my mind, life without fun — even an incredibly successful life — is a little pointless. Sure, there are other biological drives you can give in to, and you could become fulfilled by dominating your career or having kids or whatnot, and that’s cool if that’s what you want.

But for me, there’s little point to accomplishment if part of what you’re accomplishing isn’t ‘having a good time.’

The way I see it is this: you have exactly one life in which to do everything you’ve ever wanted to do. After those 100-or-so years, you’ve got nothing…everything you’ve done will eventually be forgotten, and everything you’ve built will be gone. But even so, if you can look back at your life while on your death bed and say ‘You know what, I had one hell of a good time,’ you’ve accomplished a level of success much greater than some tycoon or politician or baby-daddy.

Find what makes you happy and figure out a way to do more of it. Bonus points if you can help others do the same along the way.

Did you enjoy this post?Consider sharing it with a friend, or perusing my books.